The Feet in the Gym

School custodian Handy Bob fights a losing battle for a sparkling gym floor in this lackluster rhyming story. Bob takes his job seriously to an obsessive degree: ""I search for bits of grit and grime,/ specks of mud and drops of slime."" He spends the whole book clutching his head while children walk to class, play sports and paint pictures, traipsing through the gym: ""Holding hands, they walk in twos./ I bend down low to count their shoes./ Even though their feet are small,/ they leave their footprints, one and all."" Miraculously, when the marching band, the last to leave, finally exits, all the dirt sticks to their shoes and gets tracked out (huh?). Daniels's first picture book overextends an iffy joke. Foster's cartoon illustrations feature exaggerated perspectives--Handy Bob resembles Clutch Cargo, with his big, jutting chin, bulging biceps and broad shoulders, and the students, all with oversized heads, seem quite gleeful about messing up the floor. Spot laminations and laminated spreads don't enhance the limited visual humor. (May)